Los Angeles history

Lost genius found in homeless camp, October 5, 1958

Elmer Clarence "Mox" Meukel told his story to a couple of hobos in a shack on Scott Island in the Truckee River near Reno.

Most people wrote him off as a crackpot dreamer. After all, he was a
sometime songwriter and self-taught inventor, but these men listened to
his story.

Mox said he and some co-workers at Bendix Corp. had been designing a
motion detector that would sound an alarm when a child got near a
swimming pool.

On Feb. 1, 1958, the day he was laid off at Bendix, two military planes collided over Norwalk,
killing 48 people. Mox said he realized that his motion detector could
be turned into a device that would prevent such midair crashes.

Without a job, he began working on the device in the garage of the
home at 7716 Bonner Ave., Sun Valley, that he shared with his wife,
Jean, and three children.

"Mox sold his engineering books, my jewelry, cameras, a rifle,
tools--just about everything we owned to finance this thing," his wife
said.

As the bills piled up, Mox called on several electronics firms with his
device. The Polaris Engineering Corp., 11156 S. Main St., expressed
tentative interest in his project and offered him a contract. Although
Polaris returned his device after a few days, the company forwarded his
plans to the Pentagon.

Depressed by the family's rising debts and because no one seemed more
than mildly interested in his invention, Mox disappeared. Three days
later, the family was evicted and moved to 1602 N. Mariposa.

As the months passed, Jean took a secretarial job at an aviation
company in North Hollywood and worried about Mox. She tried to file
missing persons reports, but was rebuffed by police who said Mox's
disappearance was merely a domestic affair. There were brief, sporadic
notes from Mox and a birthday card for one of their children, but
nothing more.

Then one day in late September, Polaris announced that it wanted Mox's
invention. Military officials had studied his drawings and asked for a
prototype. If it worked as Mox claimed it did, they would offer Polaris
a $5-million contract with 3% of the money going to Mox.

Polaris officials were shocked to learn that Mox had vanished after
selling most of the prototype to a friend, Russell Hokanson, to raise
money. Polaris President Ben Raddatz and Vice President Fred Haglestein
came to Hokanson's home, 7224 Lemp Ave., to demand that he turn over
Mox's now-secret invention. But he refused and after a long argument,
Hokanson gave it to Los Angeles police officers. Unfortunately, the
prototype no longer worked because a transistor had burned out and the
device would have to be partially disassembled to replace it.

Reporters learned of the dispute and began searching for the missing genius.

In the meantime, Mox was living happily in the shack on the Truckee
River scavenging discarded food from bakeries and markets and serving
as "Lieutenant Governor" of the hobo camp.

Mox told a few
friends that he was going to Spokane, Wash., to see if his brother
could help finance his invention. When his brother was unable to bail out
his project, Mox hopped a freight, but injured his ankle when he jumped
from a moving train near Portland, Ore. Once his ankle was healed, Mox
went to Reno, where he lived in a hotel until his money ran out. A
clerk let him sleep in the lobby for a few days and then Mox found the
hobo camp.

"I got acquainted with three other fellows who didn't drink," he said.
"We fixed up a camp away from the other guys -- the winos. I gained
about 30 pounds and I weigh more today than I ever have in my life.
It's beautiful up there along the Truckee River. I got acquainted with
some good guys. I made a lot of friends."

Mox sent letters to friends asking for money and received a $20 check
from John D. Lewis of Baldwin Park. When Mox couldn't get the check
cashed, he turned it over to one of the men in his shack who exchanged
it for $20 at a wholesale meat market in Reno.

The canceled check led Walt McKenzie, a Reno Gazette reporter and Times
correspondent, to Mox's homeless friend, who said he didn't know where
Mox was, but would tell him McKenzie was looking for him. Mox was about
to hitchhike out of Reno but remembered he owned 20 cents to his friend
and when he arrived to pay the debt, McKenzie was there. Mox was found.

McKenzie filed a story and drove Mox back to Los Angeles. Charles
Hillinger reported on the tearful reunion at The Times Building between
Mox, Jean and the children. "I just knew daddy would come back," their
3-year-old son said.

"I can't get over it," Jean said. "He looks so young. Why, he looks 20
years younger than when he left." Then she brought up his comment about
eating better in the hobo jungle than he had ever eaten in his life.
"Did you really say that?"

"Honey, I was misquoted," Mox said as he winked to reporters. "I don't remember just what I did say, but I didn't say that."

In the weeks that followed, Polaris announced that it was no longer
interested in Mox's invention. He told The Times he had several other
offers, but the paper never reported anything about them.

Afterward, The Times published a letter from Jean in which she thanked the paper and its readers for
their support. "People are really very kind, aren't they?" she said.

Elmer C. Meukel left the world with one final mystery. The Social
Security Death Index lists two men by that name, both born July 2,
1917. Elmer C. Meukel, 562-42-1539, died July 2, 1998. Elmer C. Meukel
518-05-7041, died Nov. 15, 1998.